Revenge
by PennBlaze
Summary: The transition of Hugo Stigliz from an patriotic enlisted man to a Nazi killer. A man who loses everything is capable of anything. One-shot.


Hugo Stigliz gazed about the empty streets. It was dark, the hum of the street lights the only noise in the early morning hours. It was cold and still, eerily reminding him of that tragic night. His fingers absentmindedly slipped into the coat of the jacket, fingering the well-worn edges of the photograph he kept there. It reminded him of why he was there, fueled the anger that it had brought him to the dark house he was standing in front of on these empty streets of Frankfurt. Instead, his fingers found the hilt of his knife, and with one last scan, he used the hilt to break the glass on the door in front of him. He paused, waiting for any sign of movement within the house before reaching through the now broken glass and unlocking the door. Stigliz turned the handle and slipped inside the house, closing the door silently behind him. He moved like a ghost through the kitchen until he came to the foot of the stair cases leading to the second story of the house. He took each step at a time, light-footed as possible so that the Nazi captain sleeping upstairs would not wake from him slumber.

His sources had told him this was the first man to be questioned, and the only one he could had identified after a year of a relentless search for answers. The man in question was an older captain, Hans Dorr, who had been stationed in Frankfurt while his family has stayed back in the capital. Dorr's new young wife had been bedridden due to her pregnancy with their third child and was not allowed to move with him due to the stress on her strained body. It had made the captain an easier target within the otherwise empty home, and the morbid irony of the man's family life was disturbing enough to motivate Stigliz that much more in his pursuit for justice.

Stigliz slipped through the first door on his right, and with his knife out in front of him, he stalked up to the bed that the Hauptsturmführer was fast asleep in. The bed dipped slightly from his weight as he positioned himself over the sleeping man. Stigliz paused, waiting for movement from Dorr before smacking the man's cheeks to wake him up. He gave a sick grin as Dorr opened his eyes groggily before becoming wide as dinner plates once he was aware of the enlisted man seated on his chest with his SS knife pressed to his neck. The captain gulped, feeling the sharpness of the blade press deeper into the soft flesh there.

"Hallo," Dorr tried, his voice still laced with sleep and strain from the situation, "What are you here for?" He panicked when Stigliz stared coldly down at him, and attempted to negotiate himself out of the danger he was in, "Take whatever you want, please just don't hurt me."

Stigliz sneered at the comment and chuckled darkly at the idea of this high standing officer begging beneath him. His mind started to drift dangerously, wondering how many times _she_ had begged for her life…. Stigliz shook his head as if to rid himself of such thoughts and answered Dorr, "I am here to discuss business,"

"What type of business?"

This is why he had come; this is why he was here. He felt a sense of relief as the scene played out in his mind, with Stigliz gaining the retribution and closure he so desperately craved. All he had to do now was follow his plan. Stigliz took a deep breath, "You and your soldiers broke into a home over a year ago, on the corner of Arndtstraße and Westendstraße."

Dorr blinked, somewhat confused, "There are many homes we go into."

Everything felt as though it was ripped away. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Dorr was meant to remember, meant to remember the horrors he had done and Stigliz would have his justice. Stigliz shook his head, and let out a strangled sob, "No. No. You had to have remembered!" He pushed the knife rougher, his eyes tearing up. "You have to! You have to remember because I cannot stop remembering," Now the sobs were more forceful, wracking Stigliz's entire body as he cried above the major on the bed.

Dorr sat silently, staring up at the twisted shell of a man over top of him. The stranger seemed to be preoccupied; however, his knife was still pressed to Dorr's neck. If only he could somehow reach the gun in the cabinet next to the bed… Dorr was drawn from his thoughts as the stranger suddenly began to mumble through his broken sobs.

"I ran out of gas. I was so excited to get home; I didn't even bother to look. My head…" Stigliz paused, at a loss for words. "I ran out of gas. It was Christmas Eve; I pulled off to the side of the road. It felt like it had been snowing for days. No traffic, no cars to come help. Just me and car full of gifts. It was over a year ago. I must have walked four miles, five maybe. It was so still, just cold and white. Just like this evening. The whole time all I could think about was them and our house. The warm light in the windows and smoke from the chimney. The sound of my wife singing carols. I just wanted to breathe the fire, the smell of the roast in on the oven. I was so upset to think that I ruined Christmas for them. Being late, leaving the gifts in the car. But the closer I got, the more I realized how funny the whole thing was. How much they'd love the story of daddy running out of gas, how every Christmas they would get so much joy of telling that story at my expense."

"Then finally I got there. I walked…" Stigliz voice cracked, "I walked through the door… and there was just blood," He spat out the word with disgust. "All I saw was blood. All there was, was blood."

He pressed the knife closer, his aggression coming out as he told his story. A thin line of blood started dripping from the captain's neck, and Dorr struggled under it, becoming stiff only when Stigliz continued, his voice drowning out in anger and sadness, "I can still smell my wife's perfume, still feel the small fingers of my daughter on my cheek. But when I see them, in my mind, all I can see is the gruesome wreckage that your men caused."

Stigliz sobbed again. "Did you, Hauptsturmführer, know I found my baby in her crib? She had been shot; there was blood all over the bedding." He almost became lost in his grief, lost in the memory as if it was only yesterday, but he pushed on with the desire for his story to be heard by the monster that made it a reality. "And my wife. I found her in our bedroom. Her dress had been ripped in half, and her skin was covered in bruises and blood. Did you know what your men did to her?" He grabbed the collar of Dorr's night shirt with his free hand, shaking him as he demanded loudly, "She was with child. She was convinced it was a boy. They stabbed my son, and allowed my wife to bleed out. Did you know?"

In a fit of rage, Stigliz removed the knife from the captain's neck and plunged it into Dorr's shoulder, twist the knife this way and that. Dorr threw his head back and cried out, "I didn't know! I didn't know!"

Clarity came to Stigliz's once confused eyes, this was his moment. His voice now completely void of the pain that had just near ruined him, and he fiercely demanded of the still withering captain beneath him, "Give me the names of those that were with you that night."

Dorr seemed to hold out until Stigliz gave another twist of the knife, nearly ripping a hole in Dorr's shoulder. Dorr yelled out, sputtering out the names through groans and cries of pain.

Stigliz pulled his knife out of the captain's shoulder, and slapped the captain's cheeks to keep him from going into shock and drifting into unconsciousness. "We aren't finished quite yet," Stigliz gave the captain another hard smack and Dorr's eyes popped open. "Who gave you the orders?"

"I'm not sure," Dorr answered, this time with no hesitation. Stigliz smirked wickedly, and Dorr panicked as Stigliz took the knife into his other hand and ghosted the tip of the blade over the captain's other shoulder. "I swear! We were informed by a Major that the occupants of the house were harboring Jews in the house, that we were to search everything and make an example of the family that lived there."

"Very good," Stigliz said, nodding his approval towards Dorr and for a short moment, Dorr seemed to relax. Perhaps, Dorr thought to himself, he would make it out alive. The stranger in his house had gotten the information that he wanted, what else could he want?

However, Dorr's optimism was quickly crushed as it begun Stigliz's mind wondered back to the captain's original pleas for mercy and a sick sense of delight washed over him. "Now beg for your life."

Dorr looked at the man above him, "Excuse me?"

"I want you to beg. I want you to beg or your life like my wife and my child did."

Dorr stared at the man momentarily before grovelling, "Please, please spare my life. Show me mercy. I will never do it again. I will quit. I will quit my job. Please don't kill me."

Stigliz sat on top of the pleading man, and as the man pleaded for his life, all he could think of was his Katja pleading for mercy. Anger ran through him, flooding his senses with overwhelming rage. All he saw was red. "No." Stigliz growled, and brought his knife down on the captain, striking him in the soft spot between the neck and the shoulder. The wounded man gurgled, blood running out of his gasping mouth as Stigliz brought the knife down over and over again until he realized he was stabbing an already dead body.

Stigliz walked through the cold night air, holding his jacket closer to him to stay warm. He had gained the information he desired from the deceased captain, however his vendetta could not be completed against the nameless major who had given the orders that had caused his family's death. Stigliz pulled out the photograph from his pocket, now bent and aged from constant handling. He traced the ragged edges, Dorr's blood faintly smearing the black and white image. In it stood Hugo, his wife, and his young daughter in his arms. His wife seemed radiant, glowing as the two shared a loving look as their hands met on her swollen belly. Stigliz stared at the photo as if in a trance, until he noticed the sun peaked up from behind the homes. And as silently as he had come to the house of Hauptsturmführer Dorr that night, he slipped away like a ghost with the memory of his late family to fuel his need for justice; the justice for his Katja, Mädchen, and his beautiful little Maximilian.


End file.
